Open Assessment Technologies: Aiming to modernize educational systems around the world with Google Cloud
About Open Assessment Technologies
Based in Luxembourg, Open Assessment Technologies was founded in 2013. The company markets the TAO platform, an open-source assessment solution used around the world, in particular for the OECD's PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) study.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact usUnder pressure to develop its TAO platform to make it accessible to a wider audience, Open Assessment Technologies chose Google Cloud thanks to its advanced technologies, managed services that contribute to better team productivity, and robust global infrastructure.
Google Cloud results
- Improved agility and scalability
- Reduced costs
- Increased team focus on innovation thanks to managed services
- Scalability no longer restricted by infrastructure
Platform used in more than 190 countries
In the world of education, the appearance of the TAO platform marked a turning point. Conceptualized in 2002 at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), TAO was developed with the goal of making web-based assessment software freely available to the education community worldwide. It was later adopted by the Leibniz Institutes (Austria) in 2005 for research and information in the world of education, followed by the OECD in 2012 for student assessment (the PISA study) in more than 60 countries. Marketed since 2013 by Open Assessment Technologies, TAO has become the main open-source assessment solution for education and employment around the world, with millions of users in 194 countries. To date, TAO has delivered more than 100 million tests in more than 30 languages.
Promoting equal access to learning
TAO not only revolutionizes the way skills are assessed, it also opens the door to more personalized and effective teaching methods. The platform's ability to provide precise and reliable digital assessments makes it possible to not only measure learners' knowledge assimilation, but also identify learning gaps. A fundamental tool for testing in education or in business, in both the public and private sector, TAO guides teaching and training by highlighting the adjustments necessary for optimal learning, and plays a key role in the certification of skills.
"Going beyond business, our ambition is to contribute to modernizing educational methods. We're present everywhere in the world, from countries that have abundant resources, like the United States, Norway, and France, to places where the school consists of a mud hut, with three walls instead of four and no electricity, among other things."
—Marc Oswald, Co-Founder and CEO, Open Assessment TechnologiesFaithful to the open source values that led to the creation of this platform, Open Assessment Technologies acts as a true partner in both educational and professional development pathways, as Marc Oswald, the company's Co-Founder and CEO, highlights, "Going beyond business, our ambition is to contribute to modernizing educational methods. We're present everywhere in the world, from countries that have abundant resources, like the United States, Norway, and France, to developing regions where technology infrastructure in schools may be quite limited. We're very proud of our collaboration with the Zanzibar Ministry of Education in Tanzania, for example, as well as our project based on establishing a national exam in Nepal. In other words, for us, open source is not just an alternative to proprietary solutions, it's a way of making our platform accessible to everyone and being able to customize it in line with individual needs."
Technological and cultural synergies
To provide the means to achieve its goals and share the company's values with the rest of the world, Open Assessment Technologies not only needed agility—to easily enhance its platform with new services—but also scalability. Initially, however, TAO was designed as a monolithic application, a model offering limited flexibility in terms of development. "So, we started to redevelop the platform into microservices about four years ago," explains Tamer Aidek, the company's CTO. "And to achieve this transformation, while relying on a dependable, robust infrastructure with the global reach we needed to cover all countries—including the most disadvantaged ones—we chose Google Cloud."
"As the creator of Kubernetes, Google Cloud offered the most advanced solution in this domain. This factor was an important consideration in our decision, as was the geographical reach, which guaranteed us optimal access in all countries. But Google Cloud's open cloud approach was also taken into account to the extent that we share the same values in this regard."
—Tamer Aidek, CTO, Open Assessment TechnologiesFor the CTO of Open Assessment Technologies, the reasons for this choice were numerous, including purely technological criteria based on innovative Google Cloud solutions. In particular, the company uses the GKE managed environment, a cutting-edge Kubernetes implementation for managing and coordinating microservices, as well as Bigtable, a NoSQL database designed to offer an especially high level of performance when processing large volumes of data in real time. It also relies on the Pub/Sub managed service to optimize real-time exchanges between its microservices, and on Cloud Storage in response to significant requirements related to the secure management of the large volumes of data processed by TAO.
"As the creator of Kubernetes, Google Cloud offered the most advanced solution in this domain. This factor was an important consideration in our decision, as was the geographical reach, which guaranteed us optimal access in all countries. But Google Cloud's open cloud approach was also taken into account to the extent that we share the same values in this regard," Tamer Aidek adds.
Optimized architecture thanks to Google Cloud support
Another important point is that Open Assessment Technologies benefited from customized, local support during the design phase of its new platform's target architecture. "Beyond validating the design of our architecture, this valuable support allowed us to take advantage of the expertise of specialist consultants. With a strong command of the infrastructure, they guided us toward the solutions we genuinely needed, as well as toward best practices. So we saved time without "reinventing the wheel"," states Tamer Aidek. Following this phase, Devoteam—a Google Cloud Partner—took over, supporting the company in developing TAO's new architecture.
"Beyond validating the design of our architecture, the valuable support from Google Could allowed us to take advantage of the expertise of specialist consultants. With a strong command of the infrastructure, they guided us toward the solutions we genuinely needed, as well as toward best practices. So we saved time by avoiding "reinventing the wheel"."
—Tamer Aidek, CTO, Open Assessment TechnologiesTAO's transformation is ongoing. As Open Assessment Technologies has finalized the user interface designed for students, the company is now tackling the services designed for teachers and trainers, a project that should be completed in 2024. It also plans to capitalize on Google Cloud data solutions to increase TAO's analysis and reporting capabilities.
For Marc Oswald, this lengthy work of unraveling a monolithic application and making it into a modern microservices platform is certainly worth it. Now automated, scaling up will be much easier and more granular, which should mean significant cost reductions. Freed from infrastructure contingencies thanks to managed services, the Open Assessment Technologies teams can now focus on developing new industry services. This in turn will allow the company to pursue, and even increase, its mission of modernizing educational systems and training around the world.
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Contact us
About Open Assessment Technologies
Based in Luxembourg, Open Assessment Technologies was founded in 2013. The company markets the TAO platform, an open-source assessment solution used around the world, in particular for the OECD's PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) study.